A Microsoft Excel Approach to Reduce Errors and Increase Efficiency in Systematic Searching

Amelia Brunskill*a a University of Illinois at Chicago, USAAmelia Brunskill, MSIS () is an Assistant Professor and Information Services and Liaison Librarian at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Library of the Health Sciences, 1750 W Polk Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.CONTACT Amelia Brunskill abrunsk2@uic.edu Library of the Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1750 W Polk Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wmrs.AbstractDeveloping a search strategy for a systematic review is a time-consuming process in which small errors around the formatting and compilation of terms can have large consequences. Microsoft Excel was identified as a potentially useful software to streamline the process and reduce manual errors. Ultimately a spreadsheet was created that largely automates the process of creating a single-line search string with correctly formatted terms, Boolean operators and parentheses.